Falling: Advent Day 19

Magi

Matthew 2

I am a king-maker. A wisdom-wielder. A keeper of dark mystery. 

For hundreds of years we have shaped the world. One might even say we have controlled it. Men seek us out. They rely on our wisdom for guidance, as they have for generations. I understand ambition. I know well the pull for prominence, the quest for power. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall. I have watched men ruin each other and all they live for. I have myself lusted, devoured, plundered, and destroyed.

And then came the star. This thing so bright, so unmistakably new, dominating the night sky. We knew. Here is a great power. Something to change the world. 

Some of us searched the old, dark ways. But some of us readied for the pilgrimage we did not realize we had been waiting for. For there are promises we have clutched close in secret, remembering a people who offered a better way. 

Prophecies of a king. 

This star is what drove me across long deserts and days in search of the source of such a light. Night after night the light of that star burned into me, driving me on. For too long the things I hold inside me have darkened my heart, sickened my very soul. I feel myself rotting away, crumbling to dust inside my trophy walls, my gilded life. 

I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this.

I didn't look for peace in a peasant's hut. I wasn't seeking strength in the composure of a quiet girl. I did not expect to find such joy in a powerless place, such glory in this stillness.

But I know a King when I see one. 

And I know holiness when I step into the presence of something that sears the soul, that instantly exposes me for the fraud I know I am. And though I tower over this Child, I find myself collapsing before Him, face to the earth. 

Ashamed. Elated. Afraid. Hopeful. Undone.

How do you describe this feeling of being scooped out, scoured clean by love? How explain the emptiness filled by light, like a dark sky lit by a star you could never imagine? Like a longing burning its way through every thread and thought and breath until you feel you might die of it? Like a death and a rebirth all at once? 

How do you offer this King the gift you are now ashamed of? How do you get up off that patch of dirt where you belong and go back to the shadowlands? How do you tell this craving, thirsting, grasping people that they have it all wrong, that there is this holy hollowing, that the way lies not in rising but in falling? 

I do not know, but the falling is where it begins. The falling before Him and the giving way, again and again, to this surrendering. 

On whom his favor rests: Advent day 10

Shepherd

Luke 2

He was good at watching.

He had to be. Once he had fallen asleep on his watch and several sheep had been lost. He didn't want to fight off those wild dogs again--or endure the angry muttering of the others. 

Watching was about the only thing they were allowed to do these days. The world didn't like shepherds. Maybe because they smelled like sheep. Maybe because of their poverty and powerlessness. Maybe because they reminded people of something they didn't want to know. 

The world needed someone to step on, someone to take the heat of their scorn. They moved around the shepherds distastefully, acknowledging their necessity but rejecting their need. And so the shepherds watched, together in the knowledge that they were unwanted, unnoticed, and alone.

He had gradually come to accept the nobody status. Most days, out in the field with no one but sheep to talk to, he felt like a nobody. But then there were these nights with the million million stars pressing down. There were the drinks from the cool stream and the wind rushing through tall grass. There were thoughts he didn't know how to express or to whom to express them. Some nights, like tonight, he found himself holding his breath, waiting, though he didn't know why. 

Then the angel appeared with brightness unendurable. He and the others cowered, pressing themselves into the earth they knew and not daring to look up. The angel said what angels almost always say. "Do not be afraid."

Your life was formed of fear, but not anymore. You don't have to be afraid.

"I bring you good news!" This is no accident. God has come directly to you--you outcasts--to tell you the greatest news in the history of the world. 

God is here. Right over there, in fact, just a few miles away. He has come, and you are invited to go see. You.

One angel isn't enough for this kind of announcement. Thousands and thousands of them now, sky light as day, voices splitting the night with music. How could the whole world not hear, not wake to see this? But only those who watch for him will be ready when he comes. 

"Glory to God! Peace to those on whom his favor rests."

That means you. Yes you, cowering there behind your sheep. Peace. His favor rests on you.

Go and see him. He's a shepherd, just like you, and he will be an outcast too. The world will move around him and rage at him and scorn him to death. And he will be the one who watches over you and saves you from the wild dogs. 

Go and see him, and find your voice. His love will make you brave, will give you words to tell the world. 

God is here, and nothing will ever be the same.

No answers: Advent Day 8

There are days when you feel you are just mouthing the words to something you don't really understand anymore. There are days when the sun of your hopes sinks behind the mountain of hurt looming large, and you walk in the shadows. There are days when the rounds of laundry and dishes and paperwork swallow up the laughter, when you look around at the word-wounded, the lonely, the poor, the dying, the rejected, the left behind, and you have nothing more to say. 

For all the big plans, for all the good intentions, for all you know you are supposed to say and do, sometimes Christmas is just about surviving. Sometimes the fear behind all that pain just swallows up the joy. 

And then it is easy to just go shopping. To bury all that sorrow under a mound of presents. To feed it lots of chocolate and sugar. To play bright music and cover the world with color and sparkle. To pretend you are a child again, innocent, happy; to fulfill every desire for every thing you ever wanted. 

Except that one thing. That aching thing that just won't go away. 

For that, you have to wait. 

You have to keep giving the sacrifice, day after day. You have to keep mouthing the words. You have to stand still under a night sky as vast and heavy as all your disappointment, and you have to look up.

And then God comes when you least expect it. Maybe you hear angel voices or see a star you never saw before. And you can choose to listen and believe and follow. You can take those incredulous, halting steps to a stable where a baby sleeps. And is this really the way God meets us? In the muck? In a nowhere place with a bunch of nobodies? As a helpless nobody himself?

But then you touch him. You feel the tiny weight of him in your arms and you think, This is God. And you sit aghast in the knowledge that the God who formed universes wanted to come this way, to fit in the crook of your elbow just so, and to be held. 

There is a longing in a God who comes like that. A yearning. And there are no easy answers. But there is a God who put on skin, who pushed his way small and bloody into our world, who grew up poor and walked dusty roads and slept in strange places. A God who touched our sores, who put his arms around our little ones, who struggled with his family, who made both friends and enemies.

There is a God who lived a whole life here and conquered it. All for love of us. He defeated death, but first he lived a life. Our life.

There are no easy answers, but he doesn't ask us to have answers. He asks us to follow the light, step into the stable, and hold him near. He asks us to sit still with him and let him be with us. 

He longs for us, yearns for us. If we wait for him, he will come.

A new name: Advent Days 4 & 5

Elizabeth

"Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!" (Luke 1:45)

Barren.

That name had been hers for so long that she didn't know how to let go of it, how to not be that woman, empty, dried-up, hollowed-out with sorrow. 

She knew God could still use her, a barren woman. She served him in all the ways she could, doing things for other women that they often couldn't do for themselves. Because they had children. Because God had visited them and not her. Blessed them and not her. 

But he had blessed her. Her life was rich, even without children. She had even found a measure of peace in her old age.  She believed in her God, believed he would someday show her why. 

Still, her childlessness was like a robe she wore. An identity. Elizabeth, the barren woman. It was who she was. The emptiness was an ache in her, a sorrow that was now simply a part of things. 

But now. Now Zachariah looked at her every day with mute wonder. Now they couldn't stop smiling. Now she felt her womb swelling with life, and she realized that all along she had been waiting--holding her breath--for this. 

When Mary came and the baby within her leaped for joy, all those empty places in her flooded with light. God. In this woman, in this very room, overshadowing them with holy fear. 

These two mothers--one of a herald, one of a king--huddled in that holy place and watched the coming of God. In the waiting a love swelled and grew, a light that would fill the barren land and the empty, dried-up hearts of a people hollowed-out with sorrow.

And of course the name of her son would be John. His message--that God remembers, God rescues, God redeems his lost children--would begin with his name, spoken as a promise fulfilled. A name on the lips of a people who needed to know.

God is gracious.

No more words: Advent Days 2 & 3

Zacharias

Words, words, words. 

Sometimes he felt that all he did was speak words no one believed anymore, words he himself struggled to cling to.

He was a man of reason. He had been as faithful as he knew how to be, earnestly following the teachings he had received. Even under the heavy rule of the Roman Empire. Even in the years of Elizabeth's barrenness. Even when he watched many of those he served halfheartedly participating in these religious rites, knowing they were only playing along. He saw that they had long ago lost faith, though they didn't realize it. He had continued to seek God, for himself and for these lost children. He knew how to speak the faith he wasn't always sure he possessed. He knew how to say the words that would soothe troubled hearts, though not his own. He clung to the words as his only lifeline.

It wasn't as though he were asking for great things. He only wanted what other men had. That gleam in the eye when they spoke of their sons. The joy of leading his boys to the temple to teach them the ways of God. The laughter of scooping up a giggling girl with golden hair. Those little arms around the neck. Those earnest questions. The roughhousing, the boisterous meals, the songs in the dark at bedtime. These things seemed even more precious than the freedom they all longed for.

He had watched it all unfold around him again and again. He had served these families as their priest for many years, seen the children grow up and begin families of their own. And each day he had lived with the knowledge that they spoke of him in whispers, shook their heads and wondered what he had done to earn God's disapproval. Each day he went to his quiet home, his faithful wife, and tried not to question God.

He had long ago given up asking for a son. He had accepted the look of pious pity in the faces of his congregation. He no longer expected joy. He had stopped praying for the deliverance of his people. 

Now he was just waiting. 

He didn't know what he was waiting for, exactly. He still believed in this God he served day after day. He knew that God was there. He had felt it, experienced it in ways he couldn't describe. But he didn't understand this God. He wasn't sure this God understood him. So he just did his duty, waiting to see if God would show up. He was old enough now to look forward to death and to the end of all his questions. To peace. He read the words again and again, spoke them over and over as a wall to hold back the tide of despair. And when the people came to him, broken, confused, afraid, he gave them the only answers he knew. But lately those answers had begun to ring hollow.

His turn came to burn incense before the Lord. He prepared the sacrifice that would burn continually throughout the day, thinking of how it symbolized the prayers of the people going up to God as a sweet fragrance. A pleasing aroma. What exactly would God be pleased about? he wondered. The halfhearted prayers of a people poor and oppressed, a people who hadn't heard from their God in hundreds of years? And maybe this God is just a God who takes and never gives, who commands worship but who never responds. 

When he looked up and saw the angel, the fear came from knowing the angel saw right through to his very soul, and he instantly felt that all his thoughts were lies and that he was longing for something he didn't understand. He felt the weight of God's presence. He felt his frame of dust crumbling under all that glory. 

But the angel did not strike nor condemn. "Do not be afraid, Zacharias. Your prayer is heard."

The words washed over him like pure love, like power. And as the angel described the son he would bear--he, a father!--he could only think of his faithlessness. He was afraid. How could he be the one to father such a child? 

Words sprang from his fear. "How shall I know this? I am an old man, and my wife is old also."

And Gabriel said, "I stand in the presence of God. I was sent by him to tell you these glad things. And because you did not believe my words, you will be mute and not able to speak."

So Zacharias was given a pregnancy of his own.* His wife's belly swelled and the people marveled and whispered. All the while this unspeakable joy swelled and grew within him, this holy stillness. Words were taken from him and for once he didn't have to have the answers. God himself was the answer. And God was coming, he realized, because God had been there all along. It was they who had stopped looking. His unbelief was silenced as the wonder of it all filled him. In the quiet God came near. 

Finally the day came, and oh, holy miracle, a son. And more than a son. Hope. Life. Salvation. And all those words that had been building in Zacharias came out like a flood, and he said things he didn't even know he knew, things that could only come from God, and his words held the life of belief. His words didn't have to be enough, because the One who was coming, he was The Word, and it was all we would ever need. Now his words could simply praise, rising up like a sweet fragrance of faith. 

All those days of emptiness? The hours of waiting? They filled with purpose and holy joy. The people who had whispered judgment now cried aloud at the grace of God. And had things been any different--had Elizabeth borne children at an early age, had Zacharias kept his speech--well then the miracle would have slipped by unnoticed. The sunrise is always brightest after the darkest night. The things he had longed for paled in light of what he had been given. This God of love offered far more than he had ever desired.

He still does. He is here in the waiting if we only silence our words, let the space become pregnant with his presence. He has come and is coming.

* From "Annunciation" by Kathleen Noris, taken from Watch for the Light, Orbis, 2011

Seedlings in the dark: Advent day 1

Four hundred years of silence.

A people can grow weary after waiting that long. A people can lose heart, miss the way. A people can despair. A world shrouded in darkness can make a people forget what light ever looked like, can make them wonder if there ever was a light at all. And waiting can go on until it becomes a way of life, until it becomes tradition, until it is no longer waiting at all.

It is forgetting.

A people who have forgotten what God sounds like no longer wait for him. They live in fear of themselves, of each other, of the past and the future, and they cannot wait because waiting feels like doing nothing. "When we are afraid, we want to get away from where we are."*

But there is a small remnant of those who still wait. There is a promise they cling to. "They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow . . . We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. It is always a movement from something to something more."*

History may have recorded four hundred years of silence, but these hearts did not. They heard God. And in the darkness they were waiting, not passively, but in the moment, present in the belief that God was near.

He had already come. And so they were ready. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, Anna . . . they were watching for the light because it shone already in their hearts.

Advent: expectant waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ.

We mark his coming more like a forgetting than a remembering. We fill up our darkness with all kinds of noisy celebration, but I wonder if we are really waiting for him.

He's coming, you know. His coming has begun in us. There are tendrils uncurling in the darkness, seedlings reaching for the light. Will we be ready to receive him?

* Henri Nouwen, "Waiting for God." From Watch for the Light, Orbis, 2011

On turning 40: a celebration

To Julia, my sister in all the important ways. Happy birthday.

"What are you going to do to celebrate turning 40?"

You said it so cheerfully and so naturally. Like turning 40 is a good thing.

"Uh, I, um . . . " I didn't want to say that I had been avoiding the idea and was hoping that 40 might pass unnoticed.

"It's such a milestone, don't you think?"

Yeah. One I'd been thinking of rather too much lately.

"I don't really know . . . " I stammered. But I listened to you joyfully taking command of your own birthday and just diving in. And I started to wonder.

Maybe I could relish turning 40 instead of regretting it?

And today is your day. Your 40th. (I'll be joining you soon.) And while you are very far away today, I'm thinking over your words and the heart they reflect.

This heart is one I cherish. It's a heart you freely gave me all those years ago in the desert of teenage loneliness. I had lost my best friends and was starting a new school, terrified, shy, despairing. I remember my mom asking, "What about Julia? Maybe she could be a good friend."

You were the girl I had seen around town all my life but had never really spoken to. And I don't remember how it happened--did our moms set up a meeting?--but we did meet, finally, and my definition of friendship changed forever.

You were the one who always knew how I was doing even when I didn't say. You were the one who ate lunch with me every day, always told me everything and listened to everything, went on long walks with me and talked about God. You were my confidant when I got my first boyfriend and then broke up with him six weeks later. You and my sister threw me a surprise 18th birthday party when I thought no one noticed (that was one day I wanted to celebrate!). You left for college in California and faithfully wrote me letters--real letters, long and honest and meaningful. You remembered everything I told you and always asked about the important things. And in all the years since then, though we both have families of our own and live thousands of miles apart, you are the friend who is there. Present and engaged in my life, real and honest, checking in with a call or a text at least once a week.

You are the one who encouraged me to start writing. In fact, this very blog is a promise I made to you.

And today, celebrating you, friend, I have realized something new you have taught me. As you have grown older, my love for you has grown deeper and more beautiful. The memories in our friendship have become the foundation stones for something much more significant and lasting. And you yourself--you are more radiant, more giving, more alive than I have ever known you. Those teenage years of pouring into me were only the beginning of the life of loving you would lead.

I have been looking at turning 40 like a door closing, a passing away of something I can never have back. And of course that is true, in some sense. But you have helped me to see that I don't need to mourn the past. And I don't need to dread the future.

It is time that makes us truly beautiful. Like a tree with roots searching ever deeper and branches yearning ever toward the light, we are shaped by our journey into the daughters God intended for us to be. Unless we stop seeking. Unless we stop hoping. Unless we stop living intentionally, choosing the blessings of each day. Choosing to be in the moment. And when the moments are difficult, that is our cue to draw in deeper, to live even more purposefully.

.

Maybe it's no accident that we share the same name, and that our names mean "youthful." We may not have youthful bodies, but we can choose youthful spirits even as we remember how far we have come. Anyway, who would want to go back to those high school days of drama?

Thank you for celebrating our turning 40. I'm thankful for you, dear sister. And I'm looking forward to 40 more years of friendship.

This is me

I have started and not finished several posts, and I have just felt stuck lately. God keeps bringing me back to this. It doesn't yet feel complete or totally right, but it's (so far) my response to 2 Corinthians 4 and 5. These passages won't let go of me. I thought I'd share to see if any of this resonates. So often we are told how sinful and broken and shameful we are, but God has so much more to say . . .

I am

chosen.

I am

the breath of wonder,

the sharp gasp

of beauty formed

of light.

I am named and known

remembered and forever

engraved.

I am seen and sought after,

cherished and

highly prized.

I am held.

I am mended brokenness

shining shame shot through with

splendor

divine dust

dirt and bone held together

by glory

blood of eternity.

No longer crushed

perplexed

forsaken

or destroyed

I carry the life in death

the perpetual awakening.

Get your toes wet

Early morning. Too early for two tousled-hair girls to be awake, disturbing my few moments of quiet before a busy day. But here they are, one on each side of me on the couch, squirming and expectant. Waiting for whatever I have to give.

But I have nothing to give them this morning. I struggle with the resentment that comes from the stretched- too-thin, running-on-empty, don't-know-what-to-do prayers they interrupted. Here is another need I feel helpless to meet.

Wearily I open The Jesus Storybook Bible and start to read. "Moses and God's people escaped out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They didn't know the way, but God knew the way and he would show them."

I read without paying much attention until I reach page two. "What were God's people going to do? In front of them was a big sea. It was so big there was no way around it. But there was no way through it--it was too deep. They didn't have any boats so they couldn't sail across. And they couldn't swim across because it was too far and they would drown. And they couldn't turn back because Pharaoh was chasing them."

This is beginning to sound familiar.

"They could see the flashing swords now, glinting in the baking sun, and the dust clouds, and chariot after scary chariot surging towards them. So they did the only thing that was left to do--PANIC!"

How many times have I read this story in my life? Yet have I ever really understood that place, standing on the thin strip of faith between death and destruction? That place where my own strength can do nothing, IS nothing, and there is nowhere to go. Where panic grips the heart and I long for the safety of slavery again.

"'We're going to die!' they shrieked.

"'Don't be afraid!' Moses said.

"'But there's nothing we can do!' they screamed.

"God knows you can't do anything!' Moses said. 'God will do it for you. Trust him. And watch!'"

In the Biblical account in Exodus 14, Moses says to the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today." But God says to Moses, "Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward."

Oh, of course, God. Go forward. Right into all that churning water. Right into the sea of fear that will swallow me up forever.

If God were the sarcastic type, I could see him rolling his eyes. "Don't you get it yet? Is that how little you really trust me?"

Why does God's deliverance so often take us to the wilderness instead of straight to the Promised Land? I wonder. If the Israelites had not had this experience (and the thousands of other experiences of God's faithfulness), if they had not had to walk right up to the sea and get their toes wet, would they have ever really known God? Would they have ever truly understood what He wants to set us free from?

Slavery, yes. Oppression, yes. Doubt and crippling fear, yes.

Psalm 106:8 says, "He saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power known."

He wants us to know him, and so he's in the business of making himself known. And when we know him, we are set free from more than we ever thought possible. And when that sea opens up right there before us and our feet trod the muddy path of grace through death, we begin to know the power of this crazy love.

Maybe I need to get off the couch of desperate prayers and get my toes wet. Walk into that sea and watch God work.

More than good enough

The other day I got into my car to see a large crack in the windshield, spreading from the bottom up toward the center. The crack had not been there the day before, but it was clear that it would soon take over the windshield, spreading as far as it could across the glass like an angry scar. I remembered the rock that had been kicked up into our windshield by a passing vehicle a few days before. I'd forgotten to check the windshield for damage, and now it was too late. 

That crack is a visual reminder for me, strangely fitting for the condition of my life lately. Some of the dings and dents I've been ignoring are starting to spread. The rocks kicked up into my life became wounds I did nothing about, and all my heart needed was a cold day for the cracks to start.

I'm learning some things the hard way, it seems. Some loving friends have shown me that I am a peacekeeper. This is not a good thing.

A little research taught me this: "A peacekeeper always guides conversations away from the subjects that might cause strife. Peacekeepers are compromisers. They avoid confrontation at all costs. They are experts at changing the subject, preventing arguments and misdirecting the conversation. The peace achieved by a peacekeeper is a pretend peace, it is a momentary peace. This peace is outward, external and incapable of changing anyone’s heart or mind." 

Well who am I to try to change anyone's heart or mind? Shouldn't I just accept my lot and let God do the rest? 

Not always, it would seem. This is what I am learning.

A peacekeeper is not to be confused with a peacemaker. 

"Peacemakers invite necessary conflict because they know there is no other pathway to the increase of understanding between warring people and groups. Peacemakers value authentic peace more than its distorted parody. The peace that exists between people with the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace, is like gold when compared to its counterfeit cousin (peacekeeping)."

I'm a little lost and confused about all of this right now, but I suppose a lifetime of peacekeeping is not turned around quickly. I still long for the "gentle and quiet spirit" which is "precious in the sight of God." But I also want to be the peacemaker who is salt and light (Matthew 5).

"[Salt] prevents spoilage by preventing decay by bacteria, fungi, etc. Ultraviolet light also kills bacteria. Salt and light are confrontational with their environment because both prevent decay."

I had accepted some things in my life as crosses I needed to bear in silence. We were getting along, and things were good enough. I could live with it, I thought. But my acceptance allowed the decay to begin.

I thought I was doing the right thing. But the peace was momentary, and now the cracks are spreading, and I must have "the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace." This relationship is dear to me, and now I see I hurt both myself and the other person by my inaction. I was not helping either of us by allowing the wounds to fester.

"Peacemakers lead others to have peace with God." If the peace I am guarding is only between myself and the other person and is not peace with God, I am a peacekeeper, not a peacemaker. 

Now I wonder if in all my prayers for healing, God was trying to tell me that the healing had to start with my being courageous."Truth without love is harsh, but love without truth is compromise." Sometimes we pray for answers when WE OURSELVES are the answer. 

So I'm working on this idea of peacemaking, stepping out in love and confronting the cracks. I won't say it doesn't hurt. But at the same time, I have hope. I'm seeing that God doesn't want us to live with good enough. He wants to heal, wants us to be whole. And if I can let go and trust Him, He will take us there.

Too much growth can kill you

We have four apple trees in our backyard. Years ago they produced a bounty of red, but this year I can count the number of apples on one hand. At least this year there ARE a few apples. We didn't know anything about apple trees when we moved here, and so we didn't know about pruning. When we did finally prune the trees, we cut them back too far, and I feared we had killed them. They didn't bear fruit after that. So I quit pruning them altogether.

This year the trees grew with a vengeance, and in the spring the branches were laden with promising white flowers. But the apples never came. And when I looked through the tangle of branches to the center of the trunk, I saw that the trees were dying inside. While the outside of the tree was heavy with green growth, the center was becoming brown and dead, and the branches couldn't get the food they needed.

I see now why pruning is necessary. I let the trees have too much of a good thing, and now there are so many branches that the center of the tree cannot get the light or nourishment it needs. With all those branches to feed, bearing fruit is almost impossible. I must prune the trees regularly and make sure I cut away just enough but not too much. And sometimes that means cutting away the good branches to let the light in. Too many good branches means not enough fruit.

I am amazed at how God keeps using those trees to show me my life. This time last year I was emerging from a season of craziness and chaos and too-much-ness, and I spent 31 days writing about abiding. That was a season of pruning followed by so much growth. And yet now here I am again, emerging from another summer just like the previous one, with so many branches I am trying to feed that I sometimes feel like I am dying in the center. I can take on so many things and make it look from the outside that I am thriving, but at my core I am starved for sunlight. And I don't have what it takes to truly bear fruit. 

Thank goodness for a Gardner who knows just what to do when the tree will let Him. Sometimes the pruning is the cutting away of dead things. But sometimes the pruning is cutting back the tangled mess of growth to allow the good things to thrive. To keep me from choking and dying from the inside out. 

And we have the choice to come to Him or not, because we are more than just trees; we are His beloved. I find myself back at this lesson on abiding all over again, and that's OK, because I want to remember how to rest. How to be still. How to be filled with His love instead of with my own drive to constantly do, to find my significance in things that only choke the life away. 

I can rest because I can believe. 

He is good. Always. And coming back to Him always reminds me that I am right where I want to be. I just have to stay there.

What's your giant?

1 Samuel 17

It all started when they wanted a king. 

Even though God had always been more than enough for them. 

Even though his love had opened seas and split rocks and rained bread from heaven, even though he had led them across the desert, toppled the walls of their enemies, even kept their shoes and clothes from wearing out along the way. 

Maybe the parents had stopped telling the stories. Maybe the children had stopped listening. Whatever the case, God's people looked at the people around them and said, "We want what they have. We want to be like them." 

And when at their insistence God gave them a king, the king did what kings almost always do because they are just like the rest of us. 

He stopped looking at God. 

When the people stopped looking at God and started looking at the king, as long as the king was looking at God, things were sort of OK. Not the best they could be, of course. But OK.

But enemies rose up all around, as enemies do when they sense easy prey. And the king looked at the enemies, and the people looked at the king, and all of them were afraid. Then the stories of old seemed like just that--stories--and it's hard to act upon a story when you are staring a real-life enemy right in the face. 

I don't want to admit that I am just like that king and just like those people who quaked in their tents at the battle line drawn up right across the valley from the enemy. 

There they sat day after day as the giant stepped forward with his terrible, towering, armor-clad, muscular splendor, a smirk on his huge face. "I defy you!" he would cry, and then he would just wait for someone to finally step forward.

But the people fled in terror. For forty days. 

For forty days their lives stood still, held captive by fear and by a giant that was too strong for them. For forty days they stared at that giant and at the long row of enemy tents, and each day the victory seemed more impossible. Each day they gave up just a little more, and soon that giant would get what he wanted. Surrender.

You know the story. Along comes this boy, ruddy, fresh from the fields, cheerfully strolling into this camp of despair. His older brothers fill him in on the situation and he is dumbfounded. I love his incredulous question: "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" 

The men in the camp say the situation is impossible. His brothers accuse him of cockiness and trying to get attention. Saul tells him he is too young. But in the end these desperate warriors send young David armor-less to stand before Goliath. 

There must have been something about him that gave them hope. It had to be more than just his bold words. Maybe a look in his eye, an easy confidence. A peace.

People who are with God a lot are like that. People who know their God and remember his faithfulness don't have to look at the giant. They are already looking at something much bigger. 

David kept a record of God's power. Just read the psalms. When questioned by Saul, he said, "Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

And when Saul gave David his own armor and sword and David laid those down, I can't help thinking it was a way of letting go of all control. After all, the victory wouldn't have been nearly as spectacular if David had been wielding a sword. He faced that giant with a stone and a sling, knowing the power was all God's.

David's words to Goliath are worth remembering:

David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

God does not save by sword or spear. He doesn't need them. And whatever you think you need to defeat your giant? He doesn't need that either. 

David was as confident in God's love as he was God's power. He knew not only that God could do it, but that God would do it because God loved him. 

Maybe we need to stop staring at the giants and start remembering. Maybe we need to quit listening to the voices around us and be with our God instead. Maybe we need to let go of the sword, step up to the battle line, and watch God work. 

Snow in spring

Sometimes it snows in May.

Just when you are starting to think warm thoughts, pull out the shorts and t-shirts, and plan your summer adventures. Just when you are thinking the long, cold winter is finally at an end—you can throw open the windows and breathe deep.

Suddenly you find yourself huddled in front of the woodstove—again—on a gloomy May day, watching snow—SNOW, for Pete’s sake!—cover the new buds on your apple trees.

It may be hard not to be grumpy.

It might be difficult to keep from whining.

You might have to refrain from marching right out and chucking a snowball at the nearest child frolicking in the sinful stuff.

But then your daughter tugs at your hand and says, “Doesn’t it smell good, Mom?” And the sun breaks through the clouds, and you hear the dripping from the trees and the birdsong rising through the cold air, and you see the vivid green poking up through white, and you remember.

Spring always comes. Life always follows death.

And sometimes the things that mean cold darkness today will mean lush new growth tomorrow.

Sometimes the brightest spring emerges from the darkest winter.

Today this snow reminds me of the God whose ways are much higher than mine, whose thoughts are not my thoughts. He tells me:

“As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:10-12)

If I stop and still my heart, releasing my expectations, I can see the beauty. And I can almost hear the mountains singing.